It’s going to be a busy few days for Eight Degrees with beer tastings taking place all over the country towards the end of the week. Most of these are taking part as part of Bord Bia’s fantastic Farmhouse Cheese and Craft Beer Weekend and there are also some events at Savour Kilkenny. Eight Degrees beer will be featuring, some of the events will have Scott or Cam there to talk brewing and Caroline will also pop up at a few venues. Farmhouse Cheese and Craft Beer On Thursday 25 October at 7pm Pat Shortt’s Bar, Main Street, Castlemartyr, Cork there will be beer and cider matched with local cheese. Caroline will be there and she hears that chef Mike Hanrahan has some tricks up his sleeve for the night. On both Friday and Saturday afternoons Urru Bandon and Matsons Bandon, Co Cork will have Irish Farmhouse Cheese & Local Beers & Cider sampling. Special taster plate with complimentary beer/cider. On Saturday 27 October, from 10am to 3pm, Cam will be talking beer and cheese at the Farmhouse Cheese & Craft Beer Weekend will be celebrated at the Sheridan’s Cheesemongers farmers’ market, Virginia Road Station Shop, Kells, Co. Meath. The event listing for the whole weekend is on the Bord Bia website and, if you feel like putting together a DIY Irish Craft Beer/Cider and Farmhouse Cheese event at home, check out the pairing notes. Savour Kilkenny Caroline is heading off to the Savour Kilkenny Food Camp on Friday 26 October to talk about Irish Craft Beer: Savour. Match. Cook. There may also be some tastings… Registration is still open at foodcamp.ie. As part of the festival food lovers trail, The Grapevine is hosting a craft beer and tapas matching event on Saturday 27 October, from 2pm to 4.30pm. Caroline […]

FREE T-Shirt Competition How to claim your ‘Don’t Drink Beer from Strangers’ T-shirt EASY: Simple post into us four barcodes from the bottom of any of our six-packs and we will send you a free t-shirt. REMEMBER: to give us your name and address and importantly your t-shirt size. The t-shirts do tend to be on the smallish side so keep that in mind. OFFER ENDS: 15 December 2012 (delivered to Eight Degrees, Mitchelstown) POST TO: Eight Degrees Brewing, Unit 3, Coolnanave, Mitchelstown, Co Cork LIMITATIONS: We know nobody will try to exploit our generosity…. but just in case: T Shirts will only be sent to addresses in ROI and NI. Only one T Shirt per person, per address and per stamped envelope (i.e. you will only get one T shirt even you stuff hundreds of bar codes in the envelope!!) If you can’t be bothered collecting 4 barcodes, you can buy the t-shirts for 15 euros. We accept cash, cheques or bank transfer. email us for details at cam@eightdegrees.ie

Why Eight Degrees? One question we get regularly is why we are called Eight Degrees Brewing Company. Of course there are reasons, firstly we didn’t want to go with a geographical place name nor did we wish to choose an animal for our corporate image (ie the Lucky Duck). We put to you 4 possible reasons for the name Eight Degrees, and we will let you decide which one you like (or dislike) the most. 1) When Scott & I were coming up with the concept to develop a microbrewery in Ireland along similar lines to those established from our native home countries New Zealand & Australia, we looked at a map of Ireland … for inspiration. We noticed the line of longtitute that runs straight down the middle of Ireland happens to be Eight Degrees West, we liked the sound of it, but shortened it to Eight Degrees as it sounded better. Also the nautical theme is appropriate when you consider over 95% of our product is pure Irish mountain river water. 2) Eight Degrees refers to the perfect temperature in which to serve our beers. This temperature will highlight the subtle malt characteristics you can taste on the tip of your tongue whilst balancing our the bitterness of the hops at the finish. 3) We have noticed when people are enjoying our beers, they tend to relax a little, and in doing so tend to lean slightly to one side, favouring one leg over the other slightly bended leg. This relaxed stance on further investigation can be calculated at approximately an 8 degree angle rather than 0 degrees being bolt upright. Of course, should more beers be consumed, this angle can increase dramatically, although we do not encourage this as we remind our consumers to drink responsibly. 4) We all have heard of the 7 days […]